MONEY’s Best Places to Live in America

This year we rank the 50 best small cities in the country—places with great jobs, strong economies, affordable homes, excellent schools, and that special something that makes it a great place to live. Just ask the Wilson family of No. 1 Apex, N.C.

By my calculations from the Census Quickfacts website, with data from 2010 or later:

Real estate tip: Asians appear to serve as a leading indicator. There are a lot of places in the U.S. that are disproportionately white because they are on the upswing, but then there are other places that are highly white because nothing much is happening there. But predominantly white towns where the Asian to black ratio and Asian to Hispanic ratio are high do very well in these kind of lists.